Morganville (Justin Bieber)

Chapter 61

Amelie wasn't waiting for my answer, anyway. The ice queen stood up and walked to another small, low doorway with the key in the lock. She turned the key, withdrew it, and look down at it for a moment before holding it out to me. "Keep it" she said. "Leave your bookbag here, please. I shouldn't want you to forget it. You will leave through the same door that brought you"

My fingers closed around the key, registering rough, cold, heavy metal. I shoved it in the pocket of my blue jeans as Amelie swung open the door, and leant my backpack against a convenient bookcase.

"Myrnin?" Amelie's voice was low and gentle. "Myrnin, I've brought the girl I told you about. Her name is Anastasia"

I knew that tone of voice. You used it with really old, sick people, people who didn't really understand what was happening anymore. People you didn't think were really going to be around for long. It was really odd, because I could also hear the love in that low voice. Could vampires love? Well, sure, I guessed; Michael could, right?

I stepped out from behind Amelie at the vampire's imperative gesture, and anxiously scanned the room. It was big, full of the weirdest mixture of equipment and junk I'd ever seen. A brand-new white screen laptop computer with the shimmying belly dancer as a screensaver. An abacus. A chemistry set up straight out of some old Sherlock Holmes movie. More books, carelessly piled around as trip hazards, leaning in columns on every table. Lamps, some electric, some oil. Candles. Bottles and jars and shadows and angles and..

A man.

I blinked, because I was expecting an old, sick person; expecting it so much I looked around again, trying to find him. The only man in the room sat in a chair, peacefully reading a book. He marked the spot with a finger, closed it, and looked up at us.

He was young, or at least he looked it. Shoulderlength curly brown hair, beard, dark puppy dog eyes, flawless, faintly golden skin. Frozen at the age of maybe 25, just enough for creases to be forming at the corners of his eyes. Also, he was really really pretty.

And he didn't look sick. Not at all.

"Ah, good, I've been waiting for you" he said. He spoke English, but with some kind of accent, nothing that I could identify. It sounded a little bit like Irish, a little bit like Scottish, more liquid, somehow. "Anastasia, is it? Well, come forward, girl, I won't bite" he smiled, and unlike Amelie's cool attempt, it was a warm, genuine expression, full of merriment. I took a couple of steps towards him. I sensed Amelie tensing behind me, and wondered why. Myrnin seemed okay.

"Hello" I said, and received an even wider smile.

"She speaks! Excellent. I have no use for someone without a backbone. Tell me, young Anastasia, do you like sciences?"

That was an antique way of saying it. People usually said science or mention a specific thing, like biology or nuclear studies. "Yes, sir. I love sciences"

His dark eyes fluttered, full of slightly wicked humour. "So very polite, you are. And philosophy?"

"I..I don't know. We didn't study it in high school. I just got to college"

"Science about philosophy is nonsense" he said, very seriously. "And alchemy? Do you know anything of it?"

I just shook my head to that one. I knew what it meant, but wasn't it all about turning lead into gold or something like that?

Myrnin looked tragically disappointed. I almost wanted to lie to him.

"Don't be difficult, Myrnin" Amelie said. "I told you, this age doesn't regard the subject with much respect. You won't find anyone with a working knowledge of the hermetic arts, so you'll have to use what's available. From all accounts, this girl is quite gifted. She should be able to understand what you have to teach, if you are patient"